IdN v24n5: Infographics & User Interfaces

US$23.90

Crossing All Borders and Ticking All Boxes
If you really stop to think about it, all design-related works could be categorised under the heading of “infographics”, which is essentially just a matter of combining graphics with information. Whether the information appears by way of text or numerals, it has to be visually arresting to draw the viewer’s eye to it.

This is not our first issue dedicated to infographics and user-interface (UI) design. But we are always amazed that so many inspired infographic works are springing from this relatively new design field. In the digital world that we all now inhabit, apps have become ubiquitous and many of them can be classified as infographics. Most sites’ interfaces combine shades of both info and graphics — and every click you are about to make has been meticulously designed.

Description

Infographics & User Interfaces
A good infographic/UI designer must be able to think both logically and graphically, despite the different nerve centres in the brain that these two attributes occupy. A tough call — and not one that all the designers featured in the following article would agree with. For some, infographics and UI are just another kind of design riff, their main preoccupation being that of all designers, i.e. telling stories and delivering messages.

Although we have tended to put the accent on infographics as a digital medium with the co-opting of user interfacing, it should not be forgotten that most deal with old-fashioned analogue challenges such as traffic directions, signage and way-finding, to say nothing of even older-fashioned uses such as annual reports or user manuals. It is a huge subject and one that has brought forth a fascinating variety of views from our featured creatives.